Dating after coming out of the closet

)For all intents and purposes, After Ellen will now consider Kristen Stewart officially out.She’s not closeted, she’s not ashamed—it’s just not her style to make it anything but a normal part of her abnormal life.

When you hear that someone “came out of the closet” you may think, “Good for them, it’s a big step and now they don’t have to worry about it anymore.” What people may not realize is that once you come out – that’s just the FIRST time.Essentially you have to come out every time you meet someone new or run into an old friend or family member who perhaps wasn’t around when you made the big announcement.Fast forward 15 years, marriage, two kids and one divorce later. I cast out my net to any and all on the typical dating sites.Earlier this month, You Tubers Bria and Chrissy came out with a fun, silly list of the “10 Worst Ways to Come Out.” Some of their suggestions were ones you should take to heart — “while drunk” and “like you’re talking to a child” are definitely not the ways to come out — and some were all in good fun, like “with scissors.” (Though, coming out through a musical number actually sounds like a wonderful idea, if you ask me.)I have been insanely fortunate as far as coming out to my family and friends.We develop our various patterns and practices for secret prayer in the rhythms of our unique lives. Prayer is for all of life, and especially for our life together in community.

We find our place and time to “go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret” (Matthew 6:6). When we follow the lead of the Scriptures, we not only practice prayer in private, but take its spirit of dependence and trust into the rest of the day, and into times of prayer together with fellow believers.

He is a husband, father of four, and author of Habits of Grace: Enjoying Jesus through the Spiritual Disciplines. Not only is it obedience to God’s command, but it is a vital means of our receiving his ongoing grace for our spiritual survival and thriving.

And the joy of prayer — communing with God — is essential to what it means to be Christian.

The conversation ended up being fine — anticlimactic, even — but after we talked and laughed about it for a while, my mother turned around and said, “Not for nothing, but if you thought we’d react poorly to this news, why did you wait until we were on the highway to tell us? I was sitting with a friend at one of the little back tables, in chairs made for people much smaller than us, when something about our conversation made her casually say, “What, do you play for the other team or something?

” She took my reddening ears and reflexive smile as proof and she jumped up and squealed — right in the middle of class. My mother always told me, don’t put into writing what you don’t want someone else to find out, because you never know in whose hands it will end up.

Likely you know the verses that lead us to whisper prayers long after we’ve left the closet.